Creatures that Once were Men. By Maxim Gorky. Translated from
the Russian by J. K. M. Shirazi. With Introduction by G. K. Chesterton. (Alston Rivers. ls. 6d. net.)—Mr. Chesterton finds, as one might expect, an admirable opportunity for his favourite indulgence in paradox. " To be a revolutionist it is first necessary to be a revelationist." This is a hard saying. We should have thought the Anarchist was not commonly a believer in revelation. But he might be. "What makes religion possible "—and revolution—" is an attitude of primary and dogmatic assertion." Then, again, is it true that there are "no English revolutionists because the oligarchic management of England is so complete as to be invisible" ? Our idea is that the Englishman is no revolutionist because he knows that he can say the last word, if he wants to say it. We have enjoyed Mr. Chesterton's fifteen pages, however, much more than Maxim Gorky's ninety-four. Anything more dismal—the subject is the interior life of a doss-house--we have never seen. Nothing in the way of "mean streets" comes anywhere near it.
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